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“How long can someone live on a BIPAP (Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure)  machine?” That’s one of the most frequently asked questions we get, and today I’m here to answer that question.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com, and this is another tip for families with Intensive Care at Home.

How long can someone live on a BIPAP machine? Whilst it sounds like it’s a generic question, it needs to be broken down into more detail because it depends on whether people “live” in an ICU or are in an ICU, or whether they’re in a home care environment.

So, someone can live on a BIPAP, which stands for bi-level positive airway pressure machine for months or even years, depending on the underlying medical condition, overall health, and whether the BIPAP is being used continuously or just intermittently like during sleep.

Now, what I really need to say here as well is that if someone is on BIPAP at home in particular, but the same in the hospital, they need a critical care nurse 24/7. This is actually evidence-based. When you go to our website at intensivecareathome.com, you will find a section that’s called the Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines , which are evidence-based, which are a result of over 25 years of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Germany and over 13 years of Intensive Care at Home nursing in Australia. So, the evidence is all there.

It’s the same in the hospital, if someone is on continuous or intermittent BIPAP, they also need a critical care nurse 24/7, or at least while they’re on BIPAP because patients, generally speaking, have an unstable airway and that can only really be managed by critical care nurses.

Let’s break it down further, so let’s just say there’s BIPAP use for short term, which is considered as days to weeks, which is often used in hospitals and in ICUs for acute respiratory failure  COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)  exacerbations, asthma , or pneumonia . If the cause is reversible, the BIPAP can be discontinued once breathing improves, and that’s what usually happens in hospital. BIPAP, generally speaking, intermittent treatment and therapy in ICU in particular for respiratory conditions.

So, now we’re entering sort of the Intensive Care at Home territory where we’re talking about long-term or chronic use, which is months to years, for people with chronic respiratory conditions like ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), MND (Motor Neurone Disease), muscular dystrophy, obesity, hyperventilation syndrome, advanced COPD, but also for conditions like Rett syndrome, cerebral palsy, lung cancer, end stage lung cancer in particular, lower spinal injury clients or lower spinal injuries, they often have BIPAP 24/7 or intermittent.

Some of those clients who use the BIPAP only at night, and others use it sometimes 24/7, others use it day and night intermittently with good care and monitoring, such as Intensive Care at Home, where we exclusively send critical care nurses into the home for our clients on BIPAP or other chronic conditions. People have lived for several years using the BIPAP full time.

Other considerations are that BIPAP often starts out as a non-invasive ventilation mode, that means a mask is applied to the face or to the nose. But if respiratory failure progresses, a tracheostomy and invasive ventilation is what might be needed eventually. What is important, regular monitoring of oxygen levels, CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels, and comfort levels is absolutely critical. Nutrition, infection control, skin care, especially around the mask, but also around other areas of the body are important in long-term use, because many patients, not all, are immobile.

Also, for home care considerations. There always needs to be a backup machine, there needs to be a suction machine. If a patient is on BIPAP with a tracheostomy, there needs to be spare tracheostomy tubes. There needs to be a monitor to monitor heart rate and oxygen saturation.

That’s why we are called Intensive Care at Home, so we can actually set up intensive care in the home and send you critical care nurses, but also have the equipment similar to an ICU.

Now, with Intensive Care at Home, we are currently sending our ICU and critical care nurses into the home, 24 hours a day. That means, we are providing a genuine alternative to long-term stay in intensive care for ventilation, tracheostomy, Home BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure), Home CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure)  ventilation without tracheostomy, tracheostomy without ventilation, Home TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), home IV potassium and home IV magnesium infusions, IV fluids, and IV antibiotics. We’re also providing ventilation weaning at home. We’re also providing central line management, PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line management, Hickman’s line management, as well as port management at home. We’re also providing nasogastric tube and PEG (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) tube management at home as well as palliative care services at home. We also use cough assist machines for our clients for airway clearance.

We are also sending our critical care nurses into the home for emergency department bypass services. We have done so successfully as part of the Western Sydney Local Area Health District, their in-touch program, saving approximately $2,000 per patient that we keep at home, instead of them going to the emergency department.

That also means we’re in a position to cut the cost of an intensive care bed by around 50%. An intensive care bed costs between $5,000 to $6,000 per bed day. Our services cost between $2,500 to $3,000 per day and we’re freeing up the most sought-after bed in the hospital, which is the ICU bed. But most importantly, we’re improving the quality of life for patients and their families, which is a win-win situation for all stakeholders. Of course, quality of life at home is much improved surrounded by families.

With Intensive Care at Home, we are currently operating all around Australia in all major capital cities as well as in all regional and rural areas. We’re an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) approved service provider all around Australia, TAC (Transport Accident Commission) and WorkSafe in Victoria, iCare in New South Wales, NIISQ (National Injury Insurance Scheme in Queensland), as well as the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) all around Australia. Our clients and we, as a provider, have also received funding through public hospitals, private health funds, as well as departments of health.

We are currently the only service provider in Australia that has achieved third-party accreditation for Intensive Care at Home nursing in 2025. We have been achieving this level of accreditation since 2012. No other service provider has achieved this high level of accreditation in the community and has created more intellectual property for Intensive Care at Home nursing than we have. This puts us in a position to employ hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined in the community. No other service provider in 2025 employs a higher skill level in the community than we do, which enables us to look after the highest acuity adults and children in the community in Australia safely.

If you’re at home already and you’re watching this, or if you’re stuck in an ICU, or if you’re going to hospital and ED (emergency department) all the time, and you realize that you don’t have the right level of support, I’ll give you another tangible and real-world example today, very similar to the one I gave you a minute ago.

One of our first clients when we first got started over 10 years ago, was a client who was at home initially on a ventilator with a tracheostomy with a support worker model 24/7. Of course, support workers are dangerous and negligent. Having support workers looking after a client at home on a ventilator with a tracheostomy is like flying the airplane with the cabin crew instead of the pilot because anyone on a ventilator with a tracheostomy is at very high risk of medical emergencies 24/7 or even at high risk of dying if they don’t have a team of critical care nurses looking after them 24/7. This is actually evidence-based and it’s documented in our Mechanical Home Ventilation Guidelines that you can find on our website at intensivecareathome.com.

Think about it, in an intensive care unit in a hospital, you wouldn’t have support workers looking after a critical care patient on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. So, why would anyone in their right mind would do that in a home care environment in the community?

So, this client found out about us eventually and the ICU that he went back to all the time also knew about us and eventually reached out to us. We were proving our concept with this client very fast. When we worked with the client, we sent him intensive care nurses, 24 hours a day. He never, ever went back into ICU ever again and we were proving our concept there very fast.

We can do the same for you if you’re not safe at home which includes the advocacy for funding that goes along with it. We have always successfully advocated for our clients. Otherwise, we would not be in business. The same is applicable for those stuck in an ICU, similar to our case study today, or going back to ED all the time, so what you’re looking for? Reach out to us, we’ll make it happen for you as well. We can take you through the right steps including NDIS or other funding bodies, and the advocacy that needs to go along with it.

Which is also why we are providing Level 2 and Level 3 NDIS Support Coordination . We have a team of NDIS Support Coordinators, and they have a wealth of knowledge. I’ve done an interview with Amanda Riches, one of our NDIS Support Coordinators, and I’ll put a link to an interview with Amanda in the written version of this blog. We’re also providing TAC case management and WorkSafe case management in Victoria with Lucy McCotter.

If you’re an NDIS Support Coordinator or a case manager from another organization watching this, and you’re looking for nursing care for your participants, please reach out to us as well. If you’re looking for funding for nursing care for your participants, and you don’t know how to go about it and what evidence to provide, I encourage you to reach out to us as well. We will help you with the right level of funding and with the right level of advocacy. We’re also providing NDIS specialist nursing assessments done by critical care nurses with a legal nurse consulting background.

If you are a critical care nurse and you’re looking for a career change, and you want to join a very progressive, dynamic, high-performing team of critical care nurses in the community, we are employing hundreds of years of critical care nursing experience combined. If you are looking for a career change, we’re currently hiring for jobs for critical care nurses in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, in Albury, Wodonga, in Bendigo, in Geelong, and in Warragul in Victoria. If you have worked in critical care nursing for a minimum of 2 years pediatric ICU, ED, and you have already completed a postgraduate critical care nursing qualification, we will be delighted hearing from you.

I have a disclaimer, because we are offering a tailor-made solution for our clients, which includes regular staff, our clients also do want the same staff coming over and over again because they are very vulnerable and very special, and that’s why we need regular staff. So, if you’re looking for agency work where you can come and go, this will not be the right fit for you. We are looking for consistency and our clients are looking for consistency. So please, only apply with us if you can give us regular and consistent availabilities for shifts and if you’re really keen on building relationships with us and with our clients.

If you are an intensive care specialist or an ED specialist, we also want to hear from you. We’re currently expanding our medical team as well.  We can also help you eliminate your bed blocks  in your ICU and in your ED for your long-term patients, or for your regularly readmitting patients with our critical care nursing team at home. We’re here to help you take the pressure off your ICU and ED beds. In most cases, you won’t even pay for it. Even if you do pay for it, it is much more cost-effective than what you’re paying for in ICU and ED, and you get the same level of care.

If you’re a hospital executive watching this and you have bed blocks in your ICU, ED, and respiratory wards, home TPN, please reach out to us as well. We can help you eliminate your bed blocks very fast.

If you’re in the U.S. or in the U.K. and you’re watching this and you need help, we want to hear from you as well. We can help you there privately with one-on-one consulting and with hiring nurses privately.

Once again, our website is intensivecareathome.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families with Intensive Care at Home and intensive care, click the like button, click the notification bell, share the video with your friends and families, and comment below what you think about this video or what you want to see next.

Thank you so much for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecareathome.com and I will talk to you in a few days.

Take care.